Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 79 complaints. Of these, 18 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 42 complaints. We investigated 19 complaints.
More about this data
Complaints dealt with – the total number of complaints and enquiries considered. It is not appropriate to investigate all of them.
Not for us – includes complaints brought to us before the council was given chance to consider it, or the complainant came to the wrong Ombudsman.
Assessed and closed – includes complaints where the law says we’re not allowed to investigate, or it would be a poor use of public funds if we did.
Investigated – we completed an investigation and made a decision on whether we found fault, or no fault.
Complaints upheld – we completed an investigation and found evidence of fault, or the organisation provided a suitable remedy early on.
Satisfactory remedies provided by the Council – the council upheld the complaint and we agreed with how it offered to put things right.
Compliance with Ombudsman recommendations – not complying with our recommendations is rare. A council with a compliance rate below 100% should scrutinise the complaints where it failed to comply and identify any learning.
Average performance rates – we compare the annual statistics of similar types of councils to work out an average level of performance. We do this for County Councils, District Councils, Metropolitan Boroughs, Unitary Councils, and London Boroughs.
For more information on understanding our statistics see Interpreting our complaints data.
Complaints dealt with
Not for us
Assessed and closed
Investigated
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Complaints upheld
We investigated 19 complaints and upheld 16.
84% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 81% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council's population, this is 6.8% upheld decisions per 100,000 residents.
The average for authorities of this type is
4.7% upheld decisions per 100,000 residents. -
Satisfactory remedies provided by the Council
In 1 out of 16 upheld cases we found the Council had provided a satisfactory remedy before the complaint reached the Ombudsman.
6% satisfactory remedy rate.
This compares to an average of 13% in similar authorities.
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Compliance with Ombudsman recommendations
We recorded compliance outcomes in 11 cases.
In 11 cases we were satisfied with the actions taken.100% compliance rate with recommendations.
This compares to an average of 100% in similar authorities.
Annual letters
We write to councils each year to give a summary of the complaint statistics we record about them,
and their performance in responding to our investigations.
Reports
The Ombudsman has published the following reports against Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council
Find out more about reports
We issue reports on certain investigations, particularly where there is a wider public interest to do so. Common reasons for reports are significant injustice, systemic issues, major learning points and non-compliance with our recommendations. Issuing reports is one way we help to ensure councils are accountable to local people and highlighting the learning from complaints helps to improve services for everybody. Reports are published for 10 years.
Tameside council is routinely taking too long to complete reviews of the support it offers to children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has found.
Family called too late to say goodbye to mother
A Tameside family was not able to say goodbye to their dying mother because staff at the Oakwood Care Centre did not call them in time, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has said
Public scrutiny of complaints should be encouraged
The Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) is reminding councils of the importance of positively responding to and learning from complaints.
Councils advised about care charging following complaint
We remind councils of the need to properly assess the impact on existing users when they change the way they commission care.
Service improvements
The Council has agreed to make the following improvements to its services following an Ombudsman investigation.
Find out more about service improvements
When we find fault, we can recommend improvements to systems and processes where they haven’t worked properly, so that others do not suffer from these same problems in future. Common examples are policy changes; procedural reviews; and staff training. Service improvements from decisions are published for 5 years and those from reports are published for 10 years.
The latest 10 cases are listed below – click ‘view all’ to find all service improvements.
Case reference: 24 011 622
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Charging
- The Council will share the learning from this complaint with relevant staff, including how to decide the date funding for adult social care should start and the importance of resolving challenges to its decisions without delay.
Case reference: 24 002 863
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Residential care
- Ask the Home to remind staff of the importance of good record keeping.
Case reference: 24 001 193
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Assessment and care plan
- Averill House Care Home, a Council commissioned care home, could not provide copies of the records of when professionals visited the care home. The Council has agreed to satisfy itself the Care Provider has adequate systems in place to ensure it maintains individual’s case records appropriately.
- The Council commissioned Care home, Averill House Care Home, failed to seek support early enough when a resident struggled with swallowing. The Council has agreed to provide the Ombudsman with evidence of the lessons learned exercise carried out by the Care Home team regarding the importance of reviewing medicines when a person is experiencing a decline in physical health.
Case reference: 23 021 095
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council has agreed to brief all staff working on EHC needs assessments of our expectations for remedying complaints and good administrative practice in line with our Guidance on Remedies. Key principles include:1.we expect the Council to let parents and children / young people know if it is not going to be able to meet the statutory timescales;2.we expect the Council to consider offering a symbolic payment if it receives a complaint from a parent about delay and this has resulted in a significant injustice to their child; this will be most apparent in cases where a child’s provision will have been impacted by a delay – for example, following amendment of an EHC plan or where a parent has gone on to successfully appeal the Council’s decision following an annual review.
Case reference: 23 019 851
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Assessment and care plan
- The Council has agreed to identify the action it is going to take to ensure urgent cases are treated as urgent throughout the process, and not just at the start.
Case reference: 23 019 237
Category: Children's care services
Sub Category: Other
- I recommended the Council presents a copy of myfinal decision to the next meeting of the Children’s Services Scrutiny Panel.
Case reference: 23 018 886
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council has agreed to remind officers of its responsibilities to secure suitable alternative education provision, under section 19 of the Education Act 1996. It will also share a copy of the Ombudsman's focus report Out of school, out of sight? with the reminder.
- The Council has agreed to remind officers of the statutory timescales for completing annual reviews of Education, Health and Care Plans, including the need to confirm the Council's decision in writing and provide appropriate appeal rights.
Case reference: 23 013 311
Category: Education
Sub Category: School transport
- The Council will review how it currently promotes school transport entitlements to schools and parents, identify any areas for improvement and make a timebound action plan to implement the improvements it identifies.
- The Council will remind all special educational needs case officers to inform parents and carers about home to school transport support when an Education, Health and Care Plan is being finalised, and to record that the information has been shared.
- The Council will provide training for all staff in the transport team, including senior managers, covering the legislation and statutory guidance for considering eligibility for mandatory home to school transport support, before discretionary support, and in setting out its decision on applications and appeal response in line with the statutory guidance.
- The Council will share the learning from this investigation into how the Council considers school transport support application with the Council officers involved in this case.
Case reference: 23 003 561
Category: Education
Sub Category: School admissions
- The Council agreed to update its processes to ensure it informs applicants who request consideration of exceptional social or medical circumstances about the outcome of its decision. If the Council rejects the application before the exceptional circumstances panel is held, or the application is refused for other reasons, it will tell the applicant why.
Case reference: 22 017 428
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Assessment and care plan
- The Council should review its charging policy for non-residential care services, so it allows discretion for considering loan payments.
Last updated: 4 April 2015